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Most of my life I’ve been an insatiable reader. Novels, Statistical analysis reports, Aerospace publications, Science Journals, Terra firma and the origins of fault lines - read, learn, dream, broaden your horizons in the comfort of your own mind - Its quiet in there, with the ink drying in the sun. Socializing with the kidnap victims on the moon. Why did they get lost at all, leave alone the…. — You see, it's easy to lose yourself in the columns.
Aug 18, 2023
Related Recs
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If you start reading again, you'll feel better. If you read in an omnivorous and far flung manner your days will get better. You will have more to say and more to think about. You can become an evangelical for reading from a place of pure desire and care. Unusual books contain unusual knowledge.
I will post books as an act of human class solidarity. Most posts will include a link to a digital copy, but you will love going to the library. We are lucky to get to hold books in our hands.
Jul 3, 2024
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I used to be a huge reader as a kid. I'd devour book after book, carting home a whole tote bag of books from the library well into high school. Then comes the part many of my peers have related to: you get older, you go to school, you start working. You only read for school, which makes reading not fun, and then you get a job, or maybe you're doing both, and the last thing you want to do is use your brain after a long day. Then ohp! Now you're living on your own, and there's all this housework, and who has time to sit down with a book when you're running around all day. Besides, why read a book when you can doomscroll? That's reading, right? Add a few dopamine-inducing algorithm factories to your routine, and next thing you know, it's been years since you finished an actual book.
But last year, I downloaded Kindle Unlimited to access a book I'd heard good things about....and was surprised at how easy it was to get through a book. There were so many recommendations. Then I realized that, for example, when I was in the waiting room or had 15 minutes to spare, instead of logging into Instagram, I could just....tap a different app and read a chapter or two of a book.
In 2024, I read 24 books. That's more than I have in literal years!
I've fallen in love with romance novels, and signed up for a service that lets me know when there's good deals on some of my other favorite genres. It's taken a while for my reading muscle to recover, but I've moved on to meatier nonfiction titles, as well.
Now, I will be clear that I do not like Amazon, and do my best to divest myself from it when possible. But the way I see it, for now, what e-books have done for helping me rediscover my love of reading adds a lot to my life. And I figure that if it helps me get through more justice-oriented, anti-capitalist literature, then I'm using the system to work against it. ;)
I'm just so glad I've found a way back into reading again!
Jan 29, 2025
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There’s no reason to suffer from the plight of a book you don’t enjoy!! I personally love books with grandiose sweeping misery and yearning like Call Me By Your Name, The Price of Salt, the masterprice of Brideshead Revisited, other sad bangers like Normal People, Fleabag: The Scriptures!
These books bring you exquisite words like de rigueur, Grand Remonstrance, compunction, impertinence, clodhoppers, sycophantic, cretinous, louts, épergne, etc.
These words put me in a top hat and have me teaching Audrey Hepburn about the Rain in Spain Staying Mainly on the plane!!
You’d never guess that so many of my other books are silly nonsense and it’s that duality that just keeps the lights on let me tell ya!
Feb 17, 2024
Top Recs from @john-cale
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Discovering new-to-me music and being inspired ! Watching a Terrence Malick film for the tenth time and still finding something new to marvel at. Driving around LA and not hating it nearly as much as my fellow New Yorker’s told me I would. Listening to two strangers discuss politics and gender fluidity as I tap my painted fingernails across my iPad - will either of them change their position at the end of the heated debate? Is Andre 3000 even possible? Finding comfort in the fact that Solange genre hops with no apologies! No need to talk, its not my thing. So much art to make its dizzying — it will cure all evil !
Aug 18, 2023
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I’ll admit to having an obsession with clothing. Perhaps its something traded, once I gave up chemicals? I’ve had the good fortune to own some astonishingly beautiful clothes over the years, some of which are even in a museum. Lately, I’ve been hunting for a pair of pink, translucent shoes. Not just any pink, but specific to the one and only, dark designer. Not the ones made of horse-hair, not the version with the bronze toe-cap, not even the ones with the geodesic rubber add-ons. Nope, just the ones I can’t seem to find in my size, and of course, they are no longer in stock, anywhere in the world. .. maybe, I’ll just go for the yellow ones instead !!
Aug 18, 2023
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Trying to explain to someone why heritage matters and what being Welsh actually means. Then, talking myself down from the realization you just can’t explain it to someone who isn’t Welsh! Sure, it IS the land of song, choirs and dragons - but say that to my face at your own peril ! Its a deep-rooted, unearthly feeling of melancholy and joy combined loneliness and euphoria simultaneously.Yup, that’s a good start - it is me.
Aug 18, 2023